Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Shtikat Haarchion" or "Geheimsache Ghettofilm" or "A Film Unfinished" is a co-production between Germany and Israel from 2010 that resulted in this 85-minute documentary. Writer and director is Yael Hersonski and this is possibly his most known work. One reason for this may be that films about the years of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust usually attract enough viewers to keep a film from staying entirely unknown, even if you do not really deliver anything new to the subject. Of course, it's also not easy to do the latter as so many documentaries about this already exist. But luckily this one here does bring something new to the table, namely interesting information about a German propaganda film. That one was supposed to be made at the Warsaw ghetto and depict Jews as people living in the ghetto in order to convince Germans and audiences that even in the ghettos life isn't bad at all for them and maybe increase hate towards Jews even further. I am not entirely sure if this propaganda movie got made or still exists today (in fragments?), but thanks to this documentary we find out a bit about the backgrounds and circumstances of the production. I still believe it is really difficult to make a 90-minute film about a film of under an hour, so there were moments when I felt they could have been left out of this documentary piece. Anyway, it is still a good watch overall, mostly thanks to all the old footage that leaves a lasting impression and there are still some touching moments at times, even if I felt the film did not manage to make the emotional impact it tried to make, at least on me. Nonetheless, I am not surprised by all the awards recognition it received, also in the United States, even if it did not get nominated for an Oscar. I think it deserved awards recognition, but it was maybe a bit too much. If you are an English native speaker, you may want to get subtitles for this one here. Without being too enthusiastic about it (maybe also because of the subject), I recommend checking it out all in all.

Steve Pulaski The fact that the Nazi/Third Reich regime, in conjunction with its rise to power in the 1930's Germany, instilled a massive propaganda machine to inflate the popularity and perpetuate the alleged good of its policies is nothing new, but the far-reaching abilities of such a machine are still being studied today. We're told in the opening minutes of Yael Hersonski's documentary A Film Unfinished that a concrete vault was discovered to have housed over 1,000 reels of propaganda footage. This particular documentary chooses to focus on one mysterious and overlooked piece known only by the name on the tape of its reel: "The Ghetto." The piece is an hour-long showcase of life in Warsaw, the largest Jewish ghetto in occupied Poland at the time. It was a cramped, walled-in location that spanned less than three square miles of territory with serious food stability and housed many deported Jews from the Reich. It has no audio, the celluloid is heavily damaged and corroded, as most poorly stored celluloid from the time is, and the scenes in the film are heavily staged bits that showcase Jews enjoying life in the ghetto.Largely hidden in the film and only seeping through some seriously heart-wrenching moments are the realities of the Warsaw Ghetto: unforgivably dirty conditions, overcrowded streets and homes that would make a viewing of this documentary in an atrium feel claustrophobic, and the frail subjects, some barely supporting the clothes on their backs through what is basically thin flesh and weak bones. While "The Ghetto" isn't shown in its entirety in A Film Unfinished, Hersonski and company look to add context to the time period by way of narration from an appointed Warsaw judge during the time period, as well as people who actually lived and experienced the conditions in Warsaw.But perhaps the most interesting interviews and testimonies in the entire film come from a man named Willy Wist, one of "The Ghetto"'s camera operators. We're told that a German crew would frequently come into Warsaw and actively monopolize and stage certain areas in order to "portray" life in the ghetto the way they wanted to; it was unnatural and incredibly forced, as most propaganda of the time was. Wist gives his opinions decades later on being one of the cameraman for such a project, in the midst of profiling the horrors that went when the cameras were off before they were turned on to capture the events inside an isolated community of outcasts."The Ghetto" is greatly reminiscent of a 1945 short film by the name of Topaz, which was smuggled out of the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah during World War II. That film profiled the families and daily activities of Japanese people inside an internment camp, and, according to the film's director, was largely predicated upon false responses and facial expressions from those inside the camp who were said to be miserable and beaten by the poor conditions. The existence of a film like "The Ghetto" exposes three levels of sickness in the treatment of Jews during World War II: the first is the active isolation, condemnation, and genocide of an entire group of people, the second is the act of exploiting the unfathomable suffering of the very same group of people by way of fabricated documentation, and the third is the appalling manipulation of such footage, which spins undernourishment, disease, and horribly inhumane living conditions, into positive attributes of a lawless and unjustifiable prison.Townspeople throwing garbage outside of their windows is a normal occurrence in Warsaw, in addition to apathy due to pervasive hunger and lack of food of any kind. The coffin-sealing nail of complete and utter disgust for me, personally, was to see a mountain - about as large as one of those impenetrable and ever-present snow-mounds in the center of a strip mall parking lot - of feces and human waste. Such horrors of Warsaw are shown in grave detail, and as disgusting as it was to experience, much less witness, it serves a fitting analogy for the conditions and overall quality of life in Warsaw. A Film Unfinished, as a documentary, would've probably done better to spend about thirty minutes giving us background into the discovery of the film, in addition to interviews with Wist and those who suffered in Warsaw, before actually showing the entirety of "The Ghetto." There are films like Dark Blood and Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview, previously lost or unfinished works that recognize that fact by way of narration and exposition before actually giving us the promised product. The fact that Hersonski and company elaborate so much on "The Ghetto" in the first twenty minutes, but only proceed to show us maybe thirty to forty minutes of the project coupled with either narration or interjected interviews to distract from the events of the film, is pretty disappointing.A Film Unfinished does a nice job at attempting to be an all-encompassing piece devoted to profiling and really detailing the motivations behind this curious oddity of a contemptible time period in world history. I find it incredibly interesting that, even eight decades later, more information about World War II than ever, such as the art and sculptures the Nazis robbed from Jewish museums, the propaganda machine, and the living conditions in both internment camps and Germany itself, is trickling out to the public. A Film Unfinished is a necessary, if bleak, look into how sick - but pervasive and vital - Third Reich cinema was during the time, much less the actions of the Nazis themselves.Directed by: Yael Hersonski.

mirekcanada This film is testament to the survivors of the "Final Solution" but its also a sad reminder of my past, as a relative of a survivor its just almost as bad as living it yourself I heard the stories from my Dad and Grandmother, and they sounded like unbelievable stories, But to see the footage I was able to put a real face on the stories my Relatives told me, I could picture my Dad as one of the children in the documentary ( hes was yrs old in 1942) My grandfather was a prisoner of Auswich, my grandmother worked at one of the factories associated with the concentration camp, she refused to leave Poland as the transfered the workers to Germany when the Russians where at the footsteps, subsequently when the Russians arrived at the new Factory in Germany the shot all the Poles who worked their as collaborators so thanks to My grandma I'm here today. Seeing this documentary reminds me of the life they had, what they endured, and the reason I,m here today . I thank the people who put this together and most of all I thank my Grandmother, Grandfather (he escaped and was part of the Polish Army at Monty Casino) and my father who had no childhood. I love you all and God bless.So see it to mourn for the dead and to celebrate the privileged live you live, and thank the WWII veterans who gave their lives, and the many who returned scared for life to rid us of the Nazis

gregking4 After the end of WWII, four reels of film were discovered inside a vault in the German mountains. The film had no titles or credits, and was simply labeled The Ghetto. The unfinished silent film was an attempt by the German propaganda machine to paint an idyllic picture of life within the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942, where some 440,000 Polish Jews were crowded into a three-mile area while they awaited deportation. Carefully stage-managed scenes showed Jewish families living a life of luxury. This was contrasted with scenes showing poorer Jewish families living in absolute squalor, in overcrowded and filthy slums. Emaciated bodies lay on the streets. Dead bodies were bulldozed into mass graves. The point behind it all seems to have been to show that the Jews were heartless and willing to turn on their own in order to survive.In this fascinating documentary, former television editor Yael Hersonski exposes the lie behind the film, and exposes how film can be cynically manipulated for specific purposes to fool an audience. Hersonski shows the edited footage to a handful of survivors from the Ghetto and captures their heart breaking emotional reactions. Most shake their head in disbelief at the blatantly false representation of life in the ghettos.A Film Unfinished is a powerful and moving indictment of this Nazi propaganda and its cruel lie.